Myth of Job Creation by Lower Taxes

Republican dogma is that lower taxes create jobs. Wrong! Job creation statistics do not support their claim.

Job creation under George W. Bush’s administration, when Republican tax cuts were pushed heavily, created only 1.1 million new jobs. His dismal net job creation programs performed even worse than the next worst performers since the Great Depression: his own father, who created only 2.6 million jobs in his term, and Herbert Hoover, who lost 6.4 million jobs during his administration.

The Republican performance on job creation has been abysmal compared to the Democrats since Herbert Hoover. In that eight-decade span, Republican administrations produced only 28.6 million jobs compared to 70.3 million jobs created by job creation strategies of Democratic administrations.

Even Ronald Reagan, whose administration’s government job creation strategies did create 16.1 million new jobs (56.2% of all of the jobs created by Republicans since Hoover), did not compare well with Bill Clinton, whose administration was responsible for 22.7 million jobs.

The Conservative mantra between now and November 2012 will surely be, “Don’t Raise Taxes! “ But the reality is that when taxes were lowered to the lowest level since the Great Depression, under George W. Bush, the performance of the economy was appalling, and the economy produced the fewest number of new jobs since Herbert Hoover, 1.1 million new jobs in eight years. Compared to his son, George H. W. Bush’s performance was stellar, with more than 5 times as many jobs created on average, but his performance was still the second worst since Herbert Hoover.

It is true that 3.05 million jobs have been lost since President Obama took office, but that is easily attributable to the stink bomb of an economy that was in free fall when George W. Bush left office.

And what have we gotten from the lower taxes on the wealthy? We’ve gotten a federal deficit that more than doubled under recent Republican presidents. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush are responsible for more than half of the total U.S. National Debt, while Bill Clinton managed to reduce the National Debt as compared to GDP by 9.7%. While the debt grew by 1.63 trillion during his term, it grew 7.46 trillion under the most recent three Republican presidents.

Republican party economic policy seems to believe that the more they repeat economic falsehoods, the more Americans will believe them. That may be true in totalitarian systems, where there is no counterpoint, but in a Democracy with Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press, we can refute those distortions with the facts.

The next time you hear a Republican making claims about the economy, make sure you check the facts. In recent articles I have shown that they are misleading the American public about the long-term viability of Social Security and Medicare, and that the last Republican to lower the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product was Richard Nixon, in his first term. Here I have shown that their often restated claim that GOP tax cuts for the wealthy lead to job creation is also untrue.

Skip Conover is an International Executive, Author, and Artist. He has written a novel, a published current affairs book, and a published journal. He founded the Archetype in Action Organization.